Baseball. Blogging. Whenever.

Monday, February 09, 2009

Deep Thoughts


First she took down Sarah Palin, and now it turns out that she nailed A-Rod to the wall when she interviewed him a few years ago. Query: are there any PR professionals out there who still have Katie Couric on their "softball" list? The way things have gone recently, I think I'd rather be interviewed by Mike Wallace back when he had his 1970s fastball.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 1:40pm (4) Comments

Citi and the Mets


No, I won't let this die. Here's the latest piece -- this time with numbers and smart people analyzing it and everything -- explaining why the Citigroup-Mets deal is actually a good thing:

Front Row Analytics, a consultancy that helps sports franchises value sponsorships, says television exposure in New York media market is a $15 million annual value for Citi, 75% of the $20 million the company is paying the Mets. Throw in national television (the Mets are scheduled for at least 10 games on ESPN and Fox, more if they make the postseason), on-site signage exposure, plus the revenue potential from stadium ATMs and suite deals with other sponsors, and Citi is well into the black. The estimated value from hosting an All-Star Game, which is likely in a new park's early years, is $11 million.

"People see the sign on the building, but it's much more than that," says Eric Smallwood, a Front Row Analytics vice president.

I continue to maintain that, were I the CEO of Citigroup, I would not have pursued this deal in the first place, because I tend to be dubious of the value of advertising which isn't associated with an offer or a call-to-action to begin with. But I also will admit that I really know jack squat about advertising. This article makes an argument that the deal is a good one as far as these things go. No one yet has pointed me to anything suggesting that, perceptions and politics aside, Citigroup's deal with the Mets is an objectively bad one. Until they do, I'm going to continue to have a hard time getting worked up over this.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 12:00pm (9) Comments

Incentives


Kevin Baxter examines the weird world of contract incentives:

However, some clauses seem a bit strained. Houston Astros reliever LaTroy Hawkins, who doesn't have a hit in 14 big league seasons, will get $25,000 if he's the best-hitting pitcher in the National League this season. Seattle's Tyler Walker, 8-12 over the last three seasons, will receive $150,000 if he's the American League most valuable player and $100,000 more if he's the World Series MVP.

But at least those are real awards. When Alex Rodriguez negotiated his $252-million contract with the Texas Rangers, he had a clause calling for a $150,000 bonus if he was selected MVP of the division series.

There is no MVP in the division series.

And after Saturday's news, he wouldn't win it even if there was one.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 10:50am (7) Comments

Bob, the Jury


Attention lawyers of Greater Boston: if Bob Ryan ever shows up in your jury pool, have him excluded for cause:

By indicating that she will very likely exclude prosecutorial evidence that would have been very damning to the case against the beleaguered slugger, she has done right by our system, I suppose. That's the sort of Constitutionally driven protection you or I would want if you or I were being hounded by the feds for some alleged transgression, especially if the upshot of it all would be hard time. So Barry Bonds, as odious, smug, arrogant, and, I'm sure most baseball fans outside of San Francisco would agree, guilty as he is, still has a right to a fair and proper hearing, according to the laws of our land.

I guess.

OK, Ryan is joking here. Probably. This one is a little less easy to laugh off:

A good defense lawyer doesn't have to believe in the innocence of his or her client in order to put on a competent, perhaps even brilliant, defense. Some lawyers really are motivated by the touching notion that even the worst elements in our society deserve a stout defense. It also helps if the client can be viewed as a walking, talking ATM machine. I rather doubt Barry's barristers are working pro bono.

I appreciate how easy a target a high-powered defense lawyer can be, but you know, the profit motive and the belief in our Constitution aren't mutually-exclusive concepts, Bob.

In any event, I'd be curious to see how much actual, you know, evidence Bob Ryan has pored over and how closely he's read the jury instructions delivered by the judge prior to reaching his verdict. Wait, no evidence has been admitted and no jury instructions offered yet? Ryan is spouting off half-cocked about something he knows little about? Ryan is allowing his personal feelings and information that won't be presented in court to convict Barry Bonds of a crime?

I, for one, am shocked.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 10:30am (2) Comments

Omnibus A-Rod Post


Obviously there was a lot of activity over the weekend, and while the blogosphere is often great at picking up and processing stuff quickly, it's not very good at perspective or organization. So, in the interests of perspective and organization -- with the knowledge that the A-Rod story is really three or four stories wrapped up in one -- I provide this post as one-stop A-Rod steroid story shopping for the day.

Issue #1: How on Earth did this happen?

I touched on this yesterday, but the fact of Rodriguez's test should never have come to light. As Mark Fainaru "thank God steroids are back in the news" Wada reported and many others have noted, the results from the 2003 tests should have been destroyed as soon as the positives had been tallied. They weren't, most likely because Gene Orza or someone at MLBPA either didn't realize or didn't care that trying to protect the test results of ten BALCO people risked the disclosure of the at least 104 non-BALCO people from the 2003 tests. This failure to see the forest for the trees is, in my mind at least, tantamount to malpractice, and someone should be sacked for it. Probably should have been sacked already, but what has happened has happened.

In any event, it is my view that long after the Alex Rodriguez-specific portion of this drama has played itself out with an apology, a press conference, and a .300/.400/.600 season, this episode will be remembered mostly as the first known instance of the MLBPA truly betraying the interests of its own players. That, my friends, will have longer legs than anything else that broke on Saturday.

And of course, let us spare no ill feelings when it comes to whoever in the government leaked this stuff. Look, I don't sit in my study wearing a tinfoil hat all day, but you don't have to be someone like that to wonder why, if the feds have had this information for years, it's only coming out now. To me this leak smells like a calculated and maybe even a vindictive move, designed to thrust the steroid story back into the public eye on the eve of Barry Bonds' trial. I don't like to use the term "witch hunt" because its misuse has long since caused it to lose its real meaning, but it is certainly the case that the federal government's investigation of steroids in professional sports has gotten out of hand, both in terms of the resources spent and in the amount of zeal with which it is apparently being pursued.

Issue #2: What does this mean for baseball?

On one level it means very little. Spring Training will start very soon, and the regular season soon after, and the bulk of this will recede to the point where only wackos like me -- the "chattering classes" as Pete likes to say -- are talking about it. People will forget the idiotic hyperbole that has stunk up the joint over the past 48 hours. People will go to the games to forget how crappy the non-baseball world is right now, and more people will be talking about what Alex Rodriguez is contributing to the pennant drive than what he has contributed to the steroid story. And if you don't believe me, just recall that this time last year we were still bobbing helplessly in the wake of the Mitchell Report and the opening scenes of Roger Clemens' one-man tragedy. The A-Rod story is about one man's acts six years ago. Last year's stuff was about nearly a hundred dudes and high, ongoing drama. It all receded too.

But on the chattering class level, if there is any justice in the world, the A-Rod story will finally put public lie to the notion that the Mitchell Report meant anything. Not to toot my own horn, but I wrote a pretty spiffy little number in this year's Hardball Times Annual about how the Mitchell Report was a PR piece that failed on every level except one: convincing the weak-minded that it approached comprehensiveness or represented finality. How does it look now that it missed the biggest name in baseball when evidence that the biggest name in baseball had used was in the league's possession all along? How can anyone associated with Major League Baseball point to the Mitchell Report as anything other than a historical curiosity when Alex Rodriguez and, presumably, a hundred other ballplayers' names will be leaking out over the coming weeks and months? Guess what? I hate the Mitchell Report, so I'm glad it has had its horse shot out from under it. I know everyone is sick of it by now, but let's have a real blood-letting and really get it behind us, cool?


Issue #3: What does this mean for the Yankees?

Not many people are asking this question, but at least one commenter here was yesterday, and I reprint the way in which he raised the issue for everyone else's consideration:

Above all else, the New York Yankees are a brand. The Mets play baseball, the Red Sox play baseball, and so so the other 27 teams that come through New York City every summer. The only reason people root for the Yankees instead of these other teams is proximity and brand. The last thing that brand needs is nine years of its best player constantly hounded by steroid talk as he gets paid millions in bonus money for hitting #600, #661, #715, #756, and #763.

I took issue with that by noting that the Yankee Brand, such as it is, is about winning lots of freaking baseball games. If the Yankees continue to win lots of freaking baseball games, the brand will not be sullied. Indeed, the only time in living memory when "the Yankee Brand" suffered was between 1965 and 1975 when they couldn't win anything. As for now, if they continue to win lots of freaking baseball games over the next few years, it’ll be because A-Rod has continued to hit the cover off the ball, and if A-Rod is hitting the cover off the ball, people will go back to worrying about (a) the Red Sox; (b) Derek Jeter's clutchiness; and (c) who Rodriguez is sleeping with, all as God intended.

Issue #4: What does this mean for Alex Rodriguez?

As far as career assessments go, I'll leave the heavy lifting to Neyer:

I hope Alex Rodriguez didn't cheat. If we do find out that he cheated, I will wish that he hadn't. But whatever happens, I'm not going to change my opinion that he's a great baseball player. Like many of the greatest players, he'll do whatever it takes to be the best player he can be. For a stretch of five or 10 years -- and yes, perhaps even today still -- being the best player could have meant cheating. Maybe the cheaters were wrong; that's the direction in which I lean, probably because I've got a streak of the moralist in me. But I will not sit idly while great athletes looking for an edge -- not all that different from the many generations before them -- are demonized by the high priests of baseball opinion. I will not.

That's exactly where I sit, and I would hope that come 20 years from now, that's where history will sit too. That instead of blackballing Alex Rodriguez because of steroids, his accomplishments, and the accomplishments of every player in this era, will be judged on a curve, just like we judge pitchers from the 60s and slap-hitters from the 20s and 30s. They're different, and their numbers must be adjusted in some rough way in order for us to find value in them, but they are not illegitimate per se. Indeed, now that A-Rod is out of the PED closet and given that others will no doubt soon follow, maybe we're more likely to get there than we would have had we never learned about this.

Why? Because the more players who are found to have used PEDs, the less accurate it is to say that anyone had an unfair advantage. Sure, on a matchup-by-matchup basis there were users facing non-users, but the caricature of Barry Bonds and Roger Clemens -- juiced up monsters cheating their way across a league of innocents -- grows more ridiculous as each new name surfaces. Many, many ballplayers have used PEDs in recent years. So many, I'd guess, that at some point a blanket presumption of PED use -- as long as it's not accompanied by a blackballing and an excess of moralizing -- should be in order for the players of our age.

If you take such an approach, you will admittedly find fewer heroes and villains, which is sad if you write for a major newspaper, because that's how they seem to like their stories. But it does have the benefit of, you know, matching the reality which holds in the rest of our gray and ambiguous world.

And if you don't? If you demonize and hyperbolize like Jayson Stark and all of the others each time a new name pops up, proclaiming each new PED transgression to be worst than the last and all of them worse than anything that came before? Well, then, you're eventually going to have to give up on this game altogether, because you won't have a recent baseball memory that isn't terminally tainted. As I sit here today, no baseball memory of mine -- 1998 home run race included -- has been ruined by any PED-related revelations. If they had been, I probably couldn't find the will to wake up and write about this game every day. And to be fair, the Jayson Stark's of the world wake up and, most of the time anyway, seem to enjoy writing about this game too.

Which leads me to wonder: are they lying when they say how much they love baseball, or are they lying when they say that PEDs have destroyed it? It has to be one of those, right?
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 8:00am (28) Comments

Ryan Howard grows richer


No more arbitration for Big Ryan:

Ryan Howard just wanted to concentrate on baseball this spring. No squabbles over his contract. No daily questions about his future.

The big slugger got his wish -- and a hefty raise, too.

Howard and the Philadelphia Phillies agreed to a $54 million, three-year contract on Sunday, avoiding a potentially contentious arbitration hearing.

The 2006 NL MVP will earn $15 million this season, $19 million next year and $20 million in 2011. He can increase the base salary by $1 million in each of the last two years if he wins the MVP award during the previous year. He can boost it by $500,000 if he finishes second.

There are two ways to look at this. The first way is to break out your best stat-fu and calculate just how much less valuable a player Howard truly is compared to say, Teixeira or Pujols, and conclude that the Phillies are overpaying him.

The second way to look at this is to conclude that, whatever the annual salary, Howard's performance can't be replicated by anything available on the open market, the arbitrators were going to bone you anyway, and hey, Howard is a popular player on the World Series Champs, so why not go a little large?

I suppose a compromise can be reached on the grounds of length -- specifically, that it's a darn good thing that this contract expires before Howard is too far into his 30s -- thus mitigating much of the risk of decline he brings. Overpaid? Sure, but it's better to overpay for three years rather than six.

If Howard declines like many suspect, the Phillies don't get burned too badly, and Howard is still set for life. If he unexpectedly begins to age like fine wine, the Phillies would have gotten a good return on their investment and Howard sets himself up for another big payday.

So, as much as I hate the phrase, it's pretty much win-win here.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 7:20am (15) Comments

What you missed over the weekend


I don't normally post on weekends, but I did this time due to the A-Rod stuff. In case you missed it:

Here's my initial A-Rod news post;

Here's my take on the beginnings of the media hysteria;

Here's a Deep thought; and

Here's me getting all French Revolution on Gene Orza.

Much more on this in about an hour and a half. And yes, I do plan on talking about stuff other than this today.
Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 6:30am (0) Comments

Today at THT


Yesterday I spilled some of my coffee when I took a left turn too fast. It was as bad as the Space Shuttle Challenger blowing up. Then, as I was reading before bed, I dropped my book and my bookmark fell out, causing me to lose my place. It was the worst thing that had happened since the Jonestown Massacre. Finally, I woke up at 2AM this morning because my leg fell asleep. And it wasn't just numb -- it had the little pins and needles and everything. It was as if 9/11 had happened all over again.

Over the top? Well, if the pros can do it so can I.

Today at THT:

  • The esteemed writers of THT conducted a roundtable about the A-Rod stuff over the past few days, and the results are here. Since I'm kind of new, I wasn't allowed to contribute. Instead, I was required to bring the assembled group fine meats, cheeses, and strong drink to fuel their deliberations.


  • Chris Jaffe takes a look at the Detroit Tigers best pitchers from 1901-1954. As Chris notes at the outset, chronicling the all-time Tiger pitchers is sort of like listing the all-time college football powerhouses from Vermont.


  • Evan Brunell's Lost in Transactions assesses the Ryan Howard extension. And of course, he has the latest Corey Wimberly news. Now PLEASE, stop emailing me with all of your Wimberly questions.


  • Finally, over at Fantasy Focus, Victor Wang profiles Nelson Cruz. My daughter was profiled in her preschool class last week. You know, where they turn on a light and trace her silhouette and then cut it out and mount it on posterboard? It came out great. I wonder if Nelson Cruz held as still when Victor was tracing him as my little princess did. I seriously doubt it, because my little princess can do no wrong.


    • I will cleanse the A-Rod palette with a brief post about Ryan Howard sometime before 7:30, but at around 8AM, I have a mega A-Rod post, so don't say you weren't warned.
    Posted by Craig Calcaterra at 5:48am (5) Comments